MOSCOW, February 20. /TASS/. The share of citizens over 60 years of age inoculated against the coronavirus amounts to 45% of the total number of the vaccinated, however, this is not sufficient and needs to be increased, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova said at a government meeting on vaccines against the coronavirus on Saturday.
"As of today, on the whole in the Russian Federation, the share of the inoculated citizens over 60 years of age amounts to 45%. Yet nevertheless we consider those values as still insufficient and ask regions to increase this position weekly," she said.
On August 11, 2020, Russia became the first worldwide to register the vaccine against the coronavirus which was named Sputnik V. The preparation was developed by the Gamaleya National Research Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology of the Russian Healthcare Ministry. In October 2020, the EpiVacCorona preparation by the Vector State Research Center of Virology and Biotechnology of the Federal Service for Surveillance on Consumer Rights Protection and Human Wellbeing became the second registered Russian vaccine against the coronavirus.
On February 20, Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin reported that the third Russian vaccine was registered, CoviVac by the Chumakov Federal Scientific Center. It is an inactivated whole-virion vaccine against the coronavirus infection. Either artificially weakened viruses incapable of causing a disease or dead (inactivated) viruses are used in such preparations.